
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



The Decennial Publications 




SHAKESPEARE'S "LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON" 



BY 



ALBERT H. TOLMAN 



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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

FOUNDED BT JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 



The Decennial Publications 



WHAT HAS BECOME OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY 
"LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON"? 



BY 



ALBERT H. TOLMAN 



ASSISTANT PEOFESSOE OF ENGLISH LITEEATUBE 



PRINTED FROM VOLUME VII 



CHICAGO 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
1902 



^ 



.&H- 
^ 



CONGRESS, 
C<-*Kt> OOOCP No. 



6onr r i 



Copyright 1902 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



PRINTED DECEMBER 1, 1902 






L 



WHAT HAS BECOME OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY 
"LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON"? 

Albert H. Tolman 

In 1598 a volume appeared which furnishes perhaps the most important single 
piece of evidence that we have concerning the reputation that Shakespeare's writings 
enjoyed among the men of his own day. This book, " Palladis Tamia. | WITS 
TREASVRY | Being the Second part | of Wits Common | wealth," * was written by 
Francis Meres, "Maister of Artes of both Universities." The portion which especially 
interests us is a sketch, or short treatise, which comes near the end of the work, and 
bears the title "A comparatiue discourse of our English Poets, with th.e,Greeke, Latine, 
and Italian Poets." " Wytts Treasurye, " 2 as it is called in the Stationers'' Register, 
was entered at Stationers' Hall on the 7th of September, 1598. Halliwell-Phillipps 
thinks that the sketch that concerns us, the "comparatiue discourse," was surely 
written in the summer of 1598, since it contains a notice of the book of satires by 
Marston which was registered on the 27th of the preceding May as The Metamor- 
phosis of Pigmalions Image, and Satyres. 3 We cannot be entirely certain about this, 
however. Meres was so exceptionally well acquainted with the literary productions of 
his day that he mentions certain works which were not printed until some years after 
the appearance of his own book, and some others which are not known to have been 
printed at all. Indeed, one of his references to Shakespeare is to those " sugred Sonnets 
among his priuate friends" that were not published until eleven years later — and are 
not explained yet. 

The attention of scholars was first called to Meres's book by Thomas Tyrwhitt, 
in 1766. 4 

In the elaborate sentences in which Meres sets Elizabethan over against ancient 
writers, Shakespeare is mentioned by name nine times. Also, when Meres speaks of 
"these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but rogery in villanous 
man," 6 he is certainly quoting Falstaff's utterance: "There is nothing but roguery to 
be found in villanous man " (7 Henry IV., II, iv, 187, 138). We shall look now at 

i C. M. Ingleby, Shakspere Allusion-Books. Part I (Lon- 3 Halliwell-Phtllipps, Outlines, Vol. II, pp. 148, 149; 

don, 1874), p. 151. The peculiar form of this title involves an Aebeb, Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, Vol. Ill, 

allusion to a book entitled " Politeuphuia, Wits Common- p. 116. 

Wealth," 1597, described by Ingleby as " a compilation by , _. .. . _ . . „ _ 

t i. t> j v !i a Tiuiriji.- ••• 4 Observations and Conjectures upon Some Passages of 

John Bodennam." See Ingleby s Introduction, pp. nm, „. , ._ . , „.„, „_ ,„ „. ..... , . . . 

' Sftafces/ieare (Oxford, 1766), pp. 15, 16. The writer is indebted 

to Miss Louise Prouty, of the Boston Public Library, for a 
2 In Aebeb, Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, Vol. copy of the passage concerned. 
Ill, p. 125, the first word of the title is " Wyttes " ; but the 

facsimile of the entry in Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines 5 Shakspere Allusion- Books, Part I, p. 159. 

of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th ed. (London, 1898), p. 149, 
shows the form here given. 

159 



Shakespeare's "Love's Laboue's Won" 



three of the passages which contain Shakespeare's name; the other six will be cited 
later. 6 

As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to Hue in Pythagoras : so the sweete wittie soule 
of Oiiid hues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, 1 witnes his Venus and Adonis, his 
Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c. 

As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the 
Latines : so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the 
stage; for Comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, 
his Loue labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, & his Merchant of Venice: for 
Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King John, Titus Andronicus and 
his Romeo and Iuliet. 

As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue, if they would 
speak Latin : so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeares fine filed phrase, if they 
would speake English. 

It seems to be clear that Meres classifies all the dramas of Shakespeare as either 
comedies or tragedies. 8 Undoubtedly, also, any play is to him a tragedy in which an 
important character dies. Thus it happens that two plays, the first and second parts 
of Henry IV., which present at his best the greatest comic figure in all literature, 
Falstaff, are together referred to as a tragedy, '■'•Henry the 4." 

What play did Meres refer to as " Loue labours wonne " ? 

Of course, it is possible that this drama has been lost, though students of Shake- 
speare have not generally considered this a likely alternative. 

If Love's Labour 's Won 9 has not disappeared, the name must belong in some 
way to one of the plays now in our possession. The reference in Meres may represent 
one of two titles which were in use at the same time, and which were both applied to 
one of the plays that we now have, and to the form in which we have it. There are 
two dramas in the first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays to which double titles are 
given in the table of contents and in the page-headings: Twelfe Night, or, What you 
will, and Othello, the Moore of Venice. The second of these is practically a double 

6 The entire "comparatiue discourse," with several pre- "Clown. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in dark- 
ceding pages, is printed in Shakspere Allusion-Books, ness: thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will 
Part I, edited by C. M. Inqleby, published for the New allow of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dis- 
Shakspere Society (London,1874), pp. 151-67. Arber prints possess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well."— IV, 
the " comparatiue discourse " in full in his English Garner, ii, 54-65. 

Vol. II (Birmingham, 1879), pp. 94-106. Halliwell-Phil- It seems probable that the words of Meres helped to sug- 

lipps prints all the passages in which Shakespeare is men- gest tho passage in Shakospoaro. Walker thought that 

tioned by name: Outlines of the Life of Sh., 10th od. (Lon- the dramatist was hore drawing diroctly from Ovid. See 

don, 1898), Vol. II, pp. 149-51. Tho toxt of Ingleby has been note in Fdrness's edition of Twelfth Night, Philadelphia, 

carefully followed in this paper, except that only the mod- 1901. 

ern forms of s, th, and n have been used. sThe Shakespeare First Folio givos the name " Histo- 

i Professor J. M. Manly asks whether these words sng- ries " to the P la >' s named aftor tho En e lish Kings subse- 

gested to Shakespeare the following passage in Twelfth 1 uent to the Norman Conquest, and prints theso by 

Wight; themselves. Tho English historical dramas of the six- 

" Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concern- teenth and seventeenth centuries have recently been made 

ing wild fowl? tne subject of a careful study by Professor F. E. Schel- 

" Malvolio. That the soul of our grandam might haply LIN0 < The English Chroniele Play, New York, 1902. 

inhabit a bird. 'The question of tho proper form and interpretation of 

"Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion? tho titles Love's Labour's Lost and Love's Labour's Won 

" Malvolio. I think nobly of the soul, and no way will be considered in fuU under the discussion of Much 

approve his opinion, Ado about Nothing. See pp. 21-25 ft. 

160 



Albert H. Tolman 



title; the earliest known reference to the play (by Wurmsser von Vendenheym, in 
1610) calls it "l'histoire du More de Venise." 10 

On the opening page of each of five historical plays in the Folio, an elongated 
title appears, though not in the table of contents or in the ordinary page-headings. 
These full designations are: The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and 
Death of Henry Sirnamed Hot-spurre; The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Con- 
taining his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift; The second Part 
of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Good Duke Humfrey; The third Part of 
Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Duke of Yorke; The Tragedy of Richard the 
Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field. 11 
These long appellations may fairly be classed with double titles. 

Another possibility is that some play of Shakespeare now in existence represents 
the revised form of the earlier play known as Love's Labour's Won. In this case the 
probability would be that the present name was given to the new form at the time of 
the revision. It is so probable as to be almost certain that the play which appears 
in the page-headings of the First Folio as The second Part of Henry the Sixt received 
this name when the play took its present shape. The former title, The First part of 
the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, etc., appears 
on the title-page of the older version, first printed in 1591, out of which with many 
alterations and additions the play in the Folio was made. The play sometimes given 
in the page-headings of the Folio as The third Part of Henry the Sixt, sometimes as 
The third Part of King Henry the Sixt, bears a similar relation to the supposedly 
older play The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, etc., printed 1595. Whether 
in these two cases Shakespeare wrote any portion of the older plays is a question upon 
which scholars are not agreed. But this difference of opinion concerning the origin 
of two dramas in the Shakespearean canon is enough to suggest the possibility that 
some comedy of Shakespeare that we now have may have been known in an earlier 
version as Love's Labour's Won. 

It is also possible that Love's Labour's Won received a new name without under- 
going any change of form. If such were the case, we may presume that this new title 
commended itself as an improvement upon the old. 

Mr. H. P. Stokes thinks the evidence conclusive that the following plays of 
Shakespeare, in addition to Othello and Twelfth Night, were each "(generally or 
occasionally) known by [two] different names: " " the Merchant of Venice, or the 'Jew 
of Venice'; Merry Wives of Windsor, or 'Sir John Falstaff '; 1 Henry IV., or 'Hot- 
spur'; 12 Henry V., or 'Agincourt'; 2 and 3 Henry VI., or 'York and Lancaster,' 
&c; Henry VIII., or 'All is True'; Much Ado, &c, or 'Benedick and Beatrice'; 
Julius Cozsar, or 'Caesar's Tragedy.'" 13 

These, then, would seem to be the possible explanations why no play has come 

io Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse, 2d ed. (London, 12 Compare the elongated title given above. 

1879), p. 93. 13 Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays (London, 

"The variations in the typography of these titles are 1878), p. 110, note, 
not reproduced. 

161 



6 Shakespeaee's "Love's Labour's Won" 

down to us with the title Love's Labour's Won: first, the play so designated is no 
longer extant ; second, it once bore a double title, and the name by which we now know 
it is only a portion of its former full appellation ; third, the change of the name Love's 
Labour's Won to that which now designates some one of the comedies that we know 
was connected in some way with a revision of the play; fourth, the title was changed 
for some other reason, presumably to secure one that was more appropriate. 

Let us assume that Love's Labour's Won has come down to us in some form ; 
and let us bear in mind the fact that no positive evidence connects this title with any 
particular comedy of Shakespeare. What conditions, then, ought one of the come- 
dies to satisfy, and what characteristics ought it to possess, if it is to establish as good 
a claim as possible, in the absence of definite external evidence, to be identified with 
Meres's "Loue labours wonne"? 

A first requirement seems to be that the comedy selected shall not appear by 
name in Meres's list. Strangely enough, two of the solutions that have been proposed 
identify Love's Labour's Won respectively with Love's Labour's Lost and A Mid- 
summer-Night' 's Dream, though both of these plays are mentioned by Meres. There 
is an evident presumption against these views. 

A second requirement is, of course, that no comedy can be considered to represent 
Love's Labour's Won unless it can be shown that the play either was, or at least may 
have been, in existence in some form as early as 1598. In the absence of definite 
external testimony, a great variety of evidence bearing upon the probable date of a 
particular play may need to be considered. 

That the title Love's Labour's Won should aptly designate the course of the 
action in the play which we suppose to have been thus named, seems to be a third 
reasonable requirement. It is not entirely clear, however, that we have a right to 
expect that the name in question shall apply with peculiar fitness. The companion 
play, Lovers Labour's Lost, is not very happily named. Tieck recognized this by 
giving to the German translation the title Liebes Leid und Lust. It may seem prob- 
able, just for this reason, that the other of the two parallel designations was peculiarly 
apt. But even if we were to accept this inconclusive argument as sound, we should 
not be greatly helped, since the phrase Love's Labour's Won is almost a formula for 
the action of a romantic comedy. We may almost exalt it to a class name, and speak 
of the love's-labour's-won comedies. Few good English comedies would fail to be 
included in this class. Says Furness: 

Under Love labours wonne, I suppose he [Meres] may have had in mind any one of 
several Comedies, wherein the labours of love were successful, as they generally are in all 
Comedies." 

The similarity of the names Love's Labour's Lost and Love's Labour's Won 
leads us to expect parallelisms and correspondences between the plays themselves. 
Considerations of this nature may be of some service in testing the claim of any 
comedy to be accepted as having once borne the second of these designations. We 

1* Preface to Variorum edition of Much Ado About Nothing (Philadelphia, 1899), p. xiv. 

162 



Albert H. Tolman 



should expect the two companion plays to be similar in style and versification. Es- 
pecially should we expect them to agree in tone, in spirit and mental attitude, in the 
mood which produced them and the mood which they produce. About the same 
proportion of jest and earnest would probably appear in each. 

Just how far the two plays may fairly be expected to correspond in structure it is 
hard to say. The dramatist is so dependent upon the nature of his material that a 
very high degree of structural agreement, or similarity, even between two companion 
pieces, is hardly to be looked for. Still, some correspondence of action to action, 
feature to feature, and character to character, would be probable. We may look upon 
agreement with Lovers Labour's Lost in style and versification, agreement in tone, 
and correspondence in dramatic structure, as three more points to be considered in 
connection with any play that is proposed as a claimant for the title Lovers Labour's 
Won. 

It seems probable, also, that the play referred to by Meres, if compared with 
Love's Labour's Lost, would show many detailed similarities of thought and expres- 
sion. 

We have thus mentioned seven criteria, of various degrees of cogency, by which 
we may test the proposal to accept any particular comedy of Shakespeare as Love's 
Labour's Won under another name. To summarize these seven points in a few words, 
we may call them: absence from Meres's list, date, aptness of Meres's title, similarity 
to Love's Labour's Lost in style and versification, in tone, in structure, in details of 
thought and language. In treating each separate theory that we take up, it will 
usually be sufficient to refer to only those topics, or tests, among the seven just men- 
tioned, under which definite evidence is presented. 

The various theories which have been advanced concerning Love's Labour's Won 
will be considered in the following order: 

I. That Love's Labour's Won has been lost. 

II. That it is to be identified with Love's Labour's Lost. 

III. With A Midsummer- Night' 's Dream. 

IV. With The Tempest. 

V. With All's Well That Ends Well. 

VI. With Much Ado About Nothing. 

VII. With The Taming of the Shrew. 

It will be useful to have before us also the chronological order in which these 
theories were made public. So far as the writer can determine, the above views were 
put forth in the following succession : 15 

1. AWs Well; proposed by Farmer in 1767. 

2. The Tempest; by Hunter, 1839. 

3. Love's Laborer's Lost; by a writer in The Quarterly Review, 1840. 

4. That Lovers Labour's Won has been lost; proposed by the same Quarterly 
Reviewer as an alternative solution, 1840. 



15 References will be given later under the separate theories. 

163 



U 



8 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

5. The Taming of the Shrew ; by Craik, 1857. 

6. Much Ado About Nothing ; by Brae, 1860. 

7. A Midsummer -Night's Dream; by von Westenholz, 1902. 

As might be expected in view of the variety of opinions just indicated, there have 
not been wanting those who have either suggested or affirmed that the question will 
never admit of any fairly decisive settlement unless new evidence bearing upon it 
shall come to light. This inability to form any decided opinion may perhaps be said 
to constitute an eighth answer to the problem ; but it has seemed best not to classify 
and treat this together with the seven more positive theories. The statements of some 
who hold this opinion against opinions, or incline toward it, will be noted at the close 
of the paper. 

I. THE VIEW THAT THE PLAY CALLED "LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON" HAS BEEN LOST 

A writer in the Quarterly Review is the sole representative of the theory con- 
cerning Love's Labour's Won which is to be discussed in the next division of this 
paper. As an alternative to that theory, however, he considers the view that the play 
in question has been lost, to have much probability. In opposing Hunter's advocacy 
of The Tempest as the play sought for, he says: 

Why should Mr. Hunter think it improbable that a play of Shakespeare's should be lost ? 
Surely, in the troubled times of the fanatical and anti-theatrical generation which succeeded 
him, it was much more probable that, unless published immediately after his death, any work 
of our immortal dramatist's should be destroyed than preserved. 16 

Halliwell-Phillipps is strongly inclined to the view that our play has entirely 
disappeared. His words are: 

Love Labours Won, a production which is nowhere else alluded to, is one of the numerous 
works of that time which have long since perished, unless its graceful appellation be the original 
or a secondary title of some other comedy. 17 

In his recent Introduction to Shakespeare Professor Dowden puts the matter thus : 
The Love's Labour's Won which Meres names may be a lost play of Shakespeare, or pos- 
sibly, as has been conjectured, All's Well that Ends Well in an earner form may have borne 
this title. 18 

The fact that Fletcher's comedy The Wild-Goose Chase had been "long lost" 
when the folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher appeared in 1647 might be thought 
to support the hypothesis now before us concerning Love's Labour's Won. But the 
publisher in his address to the readers lamented the absence of The Wild-Goose Chase 
as the only omission in his volume. Moreover, the play was soon recovered, and was 
published in 1652. 

We should note, however, that there is no early mention of AlFs Well that Ends 
Well,or allusion to it; 19 also that the only supposed early reference to Measure for Meas- 

16 Quarterly Review, Vol. LXV (1840), p. 481. ments in tho next paragraph concerning The Wild-Ooose 

17 Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 10th ed. (London, Chase, see Ward > a History of English Dramatic Liter- 
1898) Vol. I p. 172. ature. Vol. II, 2d ed. (London, 1899), p. 707. 

is London and New York, n. d., p. 30.-For the state- ioHebford, Eversley Sh., Vol. ID, p. 111. 

164 



Albert H. Tolman 9 



ure is one that we could not possibly recognize if we did not possess the text. 20 It is not 
impossible that an early comedy of Shakespeare should so far disappear from men's 
knowledge that the only trace to reach us should be the mention of the title by a single 
writer. We cannot be sure that no early and relatively unimportant play of Shake- 
speare had disappeared, simply because the editors of the Folio said nothing about any 
such loss. 

ii. "love's labour's lost" 

The Quarterly Reviewer whose article has been noticed in the previous section, 
offers also the following suggestion: 

May not Love's Labours Won be the second part of the title of Love's Labours Lost f The 
passage in Meres, where the names immediately follow each other, would seem to countenance 
such a conjecture; and the story of the comedy would fully bear it out. In it Love's Labours — 
comic labours — are both lost and won: lost, because they led to a year of penance; and won, 
because, at the end of that year, they were to receive their reward. 21 

The fact, already referred to, that Tieck gave the title Liebes Leid und Lust to 
the German translation of this play, is an interesting recognition of the truth of the 
last sentence quoted. 

When one reads the passage from Meres that furnishes the basis of our whole 
discussion, it seems perfectly clear that he mentions by name six different tragedies and 
six different comedies, all by Shakespeare. Dowden makes the natural comment: " It 
will be noticed that Meres mentions six plays of each kind, preserving a balanced sym- 
metry which he affects." Dowden then adds: "Possibly he made omissions, possibly 
he pressed into his list the doubtful Titus, with the object of equalising the number 
of tragedies and comedies named by him." 22 

How far does Meres " affect a balanced symmetry" in the sketch where occurs 
the passage that we are seeking to interpret? It is impossible for us to reprint the 
entire essay ; but, as the six remaining references to Shakespeare fairly represent the 
style of the disquisition, and as they have an independent interest for students of the 
great dramatist, they are given here: 

As the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent by Homer, Hesiod, Euripedes, Aeschilus, 
Sophocles, Pindarus, Phocylides, and Aristophanes ; and the Latine tongue by Virgill, Ouid, 
Horace, Silius Italicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ansonius and Claudianus; so the English 
tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie inuested in rare ornaments and resplendent abili- 
ments by Sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow and 
Chapman. 

^F* T' ^T* H* T* ^ -f^ "I* 't* t* 

As Ouid saith of his worke; 

Iamque opus exegi, quod nee Iouis ira, nee ignis, 
Nee poterit ferrum, nee edax abolere vetustas. 

And as Horace saith of his; Exegi monumentum aere perennius ; Regalique situ pyrami- 
dumaltius; Quod nonimber edax; Non Aquilo impotens possit diruere ; aut innumerabilis 

Mlbid., p. 231. MShakspere Primer (New York, 1879), p. 34. 

21 Quarterly Review, Vol. LXV (1840), p. 482. 

165 



10 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

annorum series & fuga temporum : so say I severally of sir Philip Sidneys, Spencers, Daniels, 
Draytons, Shakespeares, and Warners workes; 

Non Iouis ira ; imbres : Mars ; ferrum ; flamma, senectus, 

Hoc opus unda ; lues : turbo .• venena ruent. 
Et quanquam ad pulcherrimum hoc opus euerlendum ires illi Dij 

conspirabunt, Cronus, Vulcanus, & pater ipse gentis; 
Non tamen annorum series, non flamma, nee ensis, 

Aeternum potuit hoc abolere Decus. 

As Pindarus, Anacreon and Callimachus among the Greekes; and Horace and Catullus 
among the Latines are the best Lyrick Poets : so in this faculty the best among our Poets are 
Spencer who excelleth in all kinds) Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Bretton. 

As these Tragicke Poets nourished in Greece, Aeschylus, Euripedes, Sophocles, Alexander 
Aetolus, Achaeus Erithriaeus, Astydamas Atheneinsis, Apollodorus Tarsensis, Nicomachus 
Phrygius, Thespis Atticus, and Timon Apolloniates ; und these among the Latines, Accius, M. 
Attilius, Pomponius Secundus and Seneca ; so these are our best for Tragedie, the Lord Buck- 
hurst, Doctor Leg of Cambridge, Doctor Edes of Oxforde, maister Edward Ferris, the Authour 
of the Mirrour for Magistrates, Marlow, Peele, Watson, Kid, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, 
Decker and Beniamin Iohnson. 

The best Poets for Comedy among the Greeks are these, Menander, Aristophanes, Eupolis 
Atheniensis, Alexis Terius, Nicostratus, Amipsias Atheniensis, Anaxandrides Rhodius, 
Aristonymus, Archippus Atheniensis and Callias Atheniensis; and among the Latines, Plau- 
tus, Terence, Naeuius, Sext. Turpilius, Licinius Imbrex, and Virgilius Romanics : so the best 
for Comedy amongst vs bee, Edward Earle of Oxforde, Doctor Gager of Oxforde, Maister 
Rowley once a rare Scholler of learned Pembrooke Hall in Cambridge, Maister Edwardes one of 
her Maiesties Chappell, eloquent and wittie Iohn Lilly, Lodge, Gascoyne, Greene, Shakespeare, 
Thomas Nash, Thomas Heywood, Anthony Mundye our best plotter, Chapman, Porter, Wilson, 
Hathway, and Henry Chettle. 

As these are famous among the Greeks for Elegie, Melanthus, Mymnerus Colophonius, 
Olympius Mysius, Parthenius 23 Nicaeus, Philetas Cous, Theogenes Megarensis and Pigres 
Halicamassaeus ; and these among the Latines, Maecenas, Ouid, Tibullus, Propertius, T. 
Valgius, Cassius Seuerus & Clodius Sabinus; so these are the most passionate among vs to 
bewaile and bemoane the perplexities of Loue, Henrie Howard Earle of Surrey, sir Thomas 
Wyat the elder, sir Francis Brian, sir Philip Sidney, sir Walter Raivley, sir Edward Dyer, 
Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Whetstone, Gascoyne, Samuell Page sometines fel- 
lowe of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford, Churchyard, Bretton. 2 * 

In the first of the above passages, eight Greek and eight Roman writers are mated 
with eight Elizabethans. In the second passage, there is no " balanced symmetry." 
In each of the four remaining quotations there seems to be some attempt to make the 
number of classical writers mentioned equal to the number of Englishmen ; but under 

23 Ingloby and Arbor have no comma here; Ilalliwoll- nius and Nicaeus : Witts Academy, a Treasurie of Goulilcn 

Phillipps has one. According to Suidas, Parthenius the Sentences, etc byFr:M (London, 1636), Part 

elegiac writer was a Nicaian; and the word Nicaeus cannot 2, p. 628.— Ancient critical essays upon Eyiglish Poets and 

here be explained in any other way. Miss Louise Prouty, Polsy, ed. by J. Haslewood, 1815. 

of the Boston Public Library, states that the two following 2*Shakspcre Allusion-Books, Part I, edited by C. M. 

reprints of this passage show no comma between Parthe- Inqleby (London, 1874), pp. 157, 160-62. 

166 



Albert H. Tolman 11 



the elegiac poets, according to the punctuation of Ingleby and Arber, fifteen English 
writers are set over against seven Greeks and seven Romans. The symmetry of the 
passage concerning "Poets for Comedy "is imperfect in all three of the reprints acces- 
sible to the writer ; ten Greek and six Roman writers are balanced by seventeen 
Elizabethans. 

The suggestion of the Quarterly Reviewer is, practically, that Meres pressed into 
service the double title of a single comedy in order to secure a merely formal sym- 
metry, and thus make the titles of five comedies balance those of six tragedies. Since 
a similar explanation is brought forward more distinctly by von Westenholz in the next 
division of this paper, the discussion of the question will be deferred until then. 
The natural presumption is against this method of meeting the difficulty. 

III. "a midsummer-night's dream" 

The view just examined makes Love's Labour's Won another name for the play 
Love's Labour's Lost. But there is about the same grammatical and prima facie 
basis for another suggestion, namely, that Love's Labour's Won is the first title, or 
the first half of the title, of the comedy which follows it in Meres's list, A Midsummer- 
Night' 's Dream. However, this view seems to have been first put forward in the 
present year (1902) in an acute and gracefully worded article by a German scholar, 
Professor von Westenholz. 20 

If we disregard for the moment the manifest objection that Meres seems to men- 
tion six different comedies to balance six tragedies, it is really surprking how much 
von Westenholz finds in support of his conjecture. He insists that in a play which is 
to be identified with Love's Labour's Won, we must expect to find a parallelism with 
Love's Labour's Lost corresponding to the intentional parallelism in the titles. 
Agreement in the general tone, and marked correspondences in the action and the 
characters, are to be looked for. 

Von Westenholz finds only two comedies in all those of Shakespeare which in 
general plan and in tone (nach Anlage und Tonart) can be accepted as mentally and 
spiritually related (geistig verwandt) to Love's Labour's Lost. These are As You 
Like It and A Midsummer-Night' s Dream; and in the former of these the other 
correspondences desired are wanting. 

This critic considers that the Duke, Lysander, and Demetrius, in A Midsummer- 
Night's Dream, correspond to three of the lovers in Love's Labour's Lost, the 
King, Longaville, and Dumain. He even finds the agreement in the initials of the 
courtiers' names to be significant, since the Elizabethans did "something affect the 
letter." 

Biron as a lover has no analogue in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, but as 
humorist and interpreter of the action we find a counterpart in Puck. It is Biron 
and Puck who express the contrast in the outcome of the two plays in contrasted 

25 "Shakespeares 'Gewonnene Liebesmah,' " in the Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, January 14, 1902, pp. 77-9. 

167 



12 Shakespeare's "Love's Laboub's Won" 

passages, which remind us at once of the titles Love's Labour's Lost and Love's 

Labour's Won: 

Our wooing doth not end like an old play; 
Jack hath not Jill. 

— L. L. Lost, V, ii, 884, 885. 

Jack shall have Jill ; 
Nought shall go ill. 

—A M.-N. Dream, III, ii, 461, 462. 

The daring suggestion is made that perhaps Puck is called Kobin because that 
name contains the same letters that are in Biron. We may add that the strange iden- 
tification of the dainty Puck with Kobin Goodfellow [A. M.-N. D., II, i, 34), the 
toiling "lubber fiend" of Milton's L' Allegro, is thus given a still stranger explanation. 

Von Westenholz sets over against each other the play, or procession, of the Nine 
Worthies, in one comedy, and the foolish characters who produce it, and, in the other, 
the play of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the craftsmen-actors. This is in many ways a 
striking parallel. The correspondence which is noted between Armado's lofty wooing 
of Jaquenetta and Titania's infatuation for Bottom is less marked. 

The fact that Bottom jests with each of the other servants of Titania but not with 
Moth (A M.-N. D., Ill, i; IV, i), von Westenholz explains by the bold supposition 
that Moth was a character added after the completion of the play, solely for the pur- 
pose of reminding us of the little page bearing that name in Love's Labour's Lost. 

It is suggested by von Westenholz that Love's Labour's Lost failed to keep the 
stage because of its weakness as an acting play; that this setting aside of its com- 
panion-piece took away the special significance of the title Love's Labour's Won ; and 
that the play which had borne this last name came to be known later as A Midsummer- 
Night's Dream. This new appellation should be interpreted as a fanciful sugges- 
tion concerning the origin of the play ; thus we escape the difficulty that the 
action closes on the evening of May Day. Meres is supposed to have used the double 
title both for the sake of greater clearness, the play having borne each name in turn, 
and especially that he might preserve a superficial balance between the two parts of 
his list. 

The Taming of the Shrew, which is believed to have been in existence, was 
perhaps excluded because of its excessive borrowing from its source, the comedy called 
The Taming of a Shrew (wegen der allzu engen Anlehnung an die Vorlage), or for 
other reasons. 

To say that Meres put in a double title for one comedy in order to preserve an 
outward equality between the two divisions of his catalogue, skilfully turns the flank 
of those who have relied upon the symmetry and balance of the "comparatiue dis- 
course" as proving that each half of the list contains six plays. According to von 
Westenholz, Meres was indeed so fond of outward symmetry that he was content to 
balance six titles representing five comedies against 6ix titles representing six tragedies. 
In saying this, von Westenholz is really supporting the theory of the Quarterly 

168 



Albert H. Tolman 13 



Keviewer concerning Love's Labour's Lost, examined in the previous section, just as 
much as his own. 

One cannot help feeling that it would have been more natural for Francis Meres 
to drop one of the tragedies from his catalogue, naming only five dramas of each kind, 
than to set over against an actual play a mere cipher, a dummy title. 

Von Westenholz might well have called attention to the fact known to all that the 
Folio and the early quartos show us not a single play of "Henry the 4.", as cited by 
Meres, but two plays, The First Part of King Henry the Fourth and The Second 
Part of King Henry the Fourth. Even if we admit that Meres felt his title 
"Henry the 4." to represent two closely related dramas and not one long drama, this 
method of reducing or compressing seven titles to six in the list of tragedies offers little 
support to the conjecture that five real titles were extended to six apparent ones in the 
list of comedies. 

The First Folio, as is well known, prints the plays of Shakespeare in three sepa- 
rate divisions, called in the preliminary "Catalogue," or table of contents, "Comedies, 
Histories, Tragedies"; and the "Histories," the plays named from English kings sub- 
sequent to the Norman Conquest, are given in their historical order. Von Westenholz 
argues from these facts that it is very probable that the order in which the plays are 
printed in the two other divisions of the Folio is based upon some real principle or 
principles, although the existing arrangement has not seemed to show any distinct plan. 
He finds it significant that Love's Labour's Lost is followed immediately in the Folio 
by what he believes to be its companion play, A Midsummer-Nighf s Dream. Meres 
names these two plays together and in the same order, if we admit that A Midsummer- 
Nighf s Dream is first designated by a former title Love's Labour's Won. 

It is a striking fact, which the present writer has not seen noted, that the 
comedies named by Meres, disregarding the uncertain Love's Labour's Won, are 
printed in the Folio in the order in which he names ihem, though not consecutively. 
This is made clear in the following table : 

Folio Order Order in Meres 

The Tempest 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona Gentlemen of Verona 

The Merry Wives of Windsor 

Measure for Measure 

The Comedy of Errors Errors 

Much Ado about Nothing 

Love's Labour's Lost Lone labors lost 

Loue labours wonne 
A Midsummer-Night's Dream Midsummers night dreame 

The Merchant of Venice Merchant of Venice 

As You Like It 
The Taming of the Shrew 
All's Well that Ends Well 
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 
The Winter's Tale 

169 



14 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

How shall we account for this strange agreement in the order of the Folio and of 
Meres? Can it be that the editors of the Folio were acquainted with the passage in 
the " comparatiue discourse," and consciously or unconsciously made their arrangement 
agree therewith ? If the list of Meres is to conform throughout to the order of the 
Folio, as it does in the case of the five known comedies which it contains, then we are 
limited, apparently, to the three theories concerning Love's Labour's Won that have 
now been presented, namely : Love's Labour's Won has been lost ; the name is a second 
title for Love's Labour 's Lost ; the name is a first title for A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream. 

The acuteness and skill with which von Westenholz has worked out and presented 
his theory almost blind one to to its fundamental difficulty. Some of his arguments 
have undeniable force. 

IV. "THE TEMPEST" 

Much attention has been given during the past thirty years to the question of the 
chronological order in which Shakespeare's plays were written. In other words, men 
have studied more carefully than ever before the progressive development of Shake- 
speare's mind and art. Every student of the subject knows that, as one result of this 
inquiry, The Tempest has come to be accepted as one of the latest plays of its great 
author. The comedy shows in a high degree those peculiarities of versification, style, 
and spirit which have been found to mark the closing period of Shakespeare's writing. 
It seems really impossible that the play can have been in existence at the time when 
Meres wrote his " comparatiue discourse." 

We shall therefore give but little space to the theory of Rev. Joseph Hunter that 
Love's Labour's Won is a name that was once given to The Tempest. This view was 
published in a separate Disquisition in 1839, and Hunter enlarged and fortified his 
statement of it in his New Illustrations of Shakespeare in 1845. 26 

In what way is it [asks Hunter] that Prospero makes trial of the love of Ferdinand for 
Miranda? How, but by imposing upon him certain labours? The particular kind of labour is 
the placing in a pile logs of firewood. He serves in this as Jacob did for Rachel, winning his 
bride from her austere father by them. In other words he proves the sincerity of his affection 
to the satisfaction of Prospero by the faithfulness with which he performs these labours, and 
thus his love labours win the consent of Prospero to their union. 27 

Concerning Hunter's fundamental contention that Love's Labour's Won is a fit- 
ting designation for The Tempest, Knight observes: 

Our belief in the significancy of Shakspere's titles would be at an end if even a " main 
incident " was to suggest a name, instead of the general course of the thought or action. 28 

Says Furness upon the same point: 

For us who are not convinced by Hunter's arguments, it is sufficient to remember that 
Prospero's object in subjecting the young Prince to his power was gained as much after the first 

26 Vol. I, Part II, pp. 123-89. Abundant extracts are ™ Edition Shakspere, 2d ed. (London, 1812) , Introduc- 

given in Furness's Variorum edition of The Tempest tion to AWs Well, Vol. I, p. 335. 
(Philadelphia, 1892), pp. 284-94. Instead of the full title of an edition of the complete 

VNew Illustrations, Vol. I, Part II (London, 1845), p. works of the dramatist, the abbreviation "Ed. Shake- 

133. speare " (Shakspore, etc.) will sometimes be used. 

170 



Albert H. Tolman 15 



[log] had been carried, as after the thousandth, and that the labour in itself amounted to noth- 
ing, and could really win nothing; Miranda's hand was not set as the price of it, and in fact 
Prospero had adopted Ferdinand as his future son-in-law before he was shipwrecked, so that it 
could not have been any labours of Ferdinand that won Miranda. 29 

Hunter was never able to gain adherents to his view, and the later developments 
of Shakespearean study have deprived this theory both of probability and interest. The 
further arguments for and against it are accessible in Furness's edition of The Tempest, 
and need not be detailed here. 

v. "all's well that ends well" 

We have noted that Tyrwhitt first called attention to Meres's book in 1766. Farmer, 
in his essay On the Learning of Shakespeare, 1767, was the first to offer a suggestion 
as to the meaning of the enigmatical title found in Meres. He speaks of "All's Well 
that Ends Well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, Love's Labour 
Wonne." 30 

Farmer's conjecture was probably suggested by the fitness of the title Love's 
Labour's Won, considered by itself, to serve as a designation for AIVs Well. Malone 
in 1778, in the first edition of his essay, An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in which 
the Plays of Shakspeare Were Written, accepted Farmer's conjecture, and gave to 
AIVs Well the date 1598, the very year when we are to suppose that it is mentioned 
by Meres under another name. "No other of our authour's plays," Malone declared, 
" could have borne that title [Love's Labour's Won] with so much propriety." 81 
Nevertheless, the mature style of certain portions caused Malone later to assign 1606 
as a more probable date for the writing of this comedy. 32 

The difficulty which compelled this scholar to abandon his first opinion would 
probably have prevented a general acceptance of Farmer's conjecture, had not another 
peculiarity of AIVs Well made it seem entirely feasible to combine in one theory all 
that was essential in both of Malone's opinions, apparently contradictory though they 
were. According to Collier, Coleridge expressed the opinion "in 1811, and again in 
1818, though it is not found in his ' Literary Remains,' that ' All's Well that Ends 
Well,' as it has come down to us, was written at two different, and rather distant 
periods of the poet's life. He pointed out very clearly two distinct styles, not only of 
thought, but of expression." 33 

In his Lectures on Shakspere, as now collected and published, Coleridge speaks 
of AIVs Well as having been "originally intended as the counterpart of 'Love's La- 
bour's Lost.' " 34 It is clear, therefore, that he accepted also the suggestion of Farmer. 

Two facts already indicated — the prima facie fitness of the title Love's Labour's 
Won to designate the play of All's Well, and the apparent existence in the play side by 

29 Variorum ed. of The Tempest, p. 288. 32 Variorum Shakespeare of 1821, edited by Boswell 

30 The Boswell-Malone Variorum edition of Shake- AND Malone, Vol. II, p. 406. 

speare (London, 1821), Vol. I, p. 314. 33 Ed. Shakespeare, J. P. Colliee, 2d ed. (London, 

31 Edition Shakspeare (London, 1790), Vol. I, Part I, 1858 >- VoL n > P- 529 - 

p. 319. 3i London, 1885 (1883) , p. 249. 

171 



16 Shakespeabe's ''Love's Laboub's Won" 

side of two widely dissimilar styles of writing — have led perhaps the majority of Shake- 
spearean students at the same time to accept the identification proposed by Farmer, 
and to admit that portions of AIVs Well are later than 1598. While no two of these 
critics would express themselves in just the same way, Collier's statement of the matter 
is a fairly representative one : 

My notion is that " All's Well that Ends Well " was in the first instance, and prior to 1598, 
called " Love's Labour's Won," and that it had a clear reference to " Love's Labour's Lost," of 
which it might be considered the counterpart. It was then, perhaps, laid by for some years, 
and revived by its author, with alterations and additions, about 1605 or 1606, when the new title 
of "All's Well that Ends Well" was given to it. 85 

The "theory that in the title Loue labours ivonne Meres refers to an earlier 
form of the play AIVs Well that Ends Well has been held by Coleridge (as already 
indicated), Tieck, Collier (already cited), Lloyd, Verplanck, Dyce, White, Gervinus, 
von Friesen, Ward, Elze, Fleay (first opinion), Furnivall, Stokes, Hudson, Boyle, 
Brandes, and Herford. 36 

Those scholars who believe that AIVs Well existed in its present form as early as 
1598 are able to identify that play with Love's Labour's Won without any reference 
to the question whether or not it ever underwent a revision. This is in general the 
position of Farmer (already cited), of Drake (who was perhaps ignorant of Coleridge's 
opinion), of Ulrici, Knight, Staunton, Delius, W. Konig, Kreyssig, and Sidney Lee. 37 

The critics just named attach no importance to the suggestion that AIVs Well 
experienced revision. Knight, to be sure, speaks of the possibility that the comedy 
may have been first produced "in an imperfect form." 88 W. Konig thinks that a 
later revision, if it took place at all, cannot have been of any importance. Delius finds 
no grounds for the view that AIVs Well was composed at different periods. He gives 
the date as 1598, on account of the supposed reference in Meres, but says that the 
style of the play would suggest a later period. 

35 Ed. Shakespeare, 1858, Vol. II, p. 530. p. 336; Fleay, Shakespeare Manual (London, 1876 [1874]), 

„._, , ,, , ... . . pp. 224-6; Furnivall, Intro, to Leopold Shakspere (Lon 

36The names of the above critics are given approxi- *, no-nii i ■ ™ • i ^_j 



mately in chronological order. A date added in brack- 
ets in the next paragraph represents either the year of the 
original edition of the work cited, or the date at which 
the opinion in question is believed to have been made 
public, though the present writer cannot be sure what is 
in a book that he has not seen 



don, 1881 [1877]), p. lxi; Stokes, Chronological Order of 
Sh.'s Plays (London, 1878), pp. 110-13; Hudson, Harvard 
Shakespeare (Boston, 1880-1), Vol. IV, pp. 3-6; Boyle, "AU's 
Well that Ends Well and Love's Labour's Won," Englische 
Studien, Vol. XIV (1890), pp. 408-21; Beandes, William 
Shakespeare (ono-volumo edition of English translation), 



_,, ., , , , .. ., .. .„ (New York, 1899), pp. 47-9, 393, 399; Heeford, Eversley Sh. 

The authors named have been consulted in the follow- , T , „' 1: , L TX ' ' ' ' * 

.... mi .. j • tr _ i csu i (London, 1899), Vol. Ill, pp. 111-18. 
ing editions: Tieck, quoted in Knight a ed. Shakspere 

(London, 1842 [1841]), Vol. I, pp. 337, 338 (the sets of Tieck 37 Drake, Shakspeare and His Times (London, 1817), 

consulted seem not to contain all of his writings on Shake- Vol. n - PP- 422 > i23 < Ulbici, Shakespeare's Dramatic Art 

peare) ; Lloyd, Critical Essays on the Plays of Sh. (London, (London, no date [published 1839, translated 1876]), Vol. I, 

1894 [in Singer's 2d ed. of Sh., 1856]), p. 141; Veeplanck, PP- 8*, 9° J Knight, od. Shakspere, 2d ed. (London, 1S42 

quoted by White (see below). Vol. V, p. 9; Dyce, The Works [W41])i Vol. I, pp. 329-38; Staunton, The Works of Sh., 

ofSh., 5th ed. (London, 1886(1857]), Vol. Ill, p. 195; White, mns - b y Gilbert (London, 1881 [1857]), Vol. VI, p. 125; 

The Works of Sh., Vol. V (Boston, 1857), pp. 7-10; Gervinus, Delius, Shaksperes Werke, neue Ausg. (Elberfeld, 1864), 

Shakespeare Commentaries, trans, by Bunnett, 5th od. Einloitung zu A IV s Well; W. Konig, Jahrbuchd. dcutschen 

(London, 1892 [3d Gorman ed., 1862]), pp. 173, 174; VON Sh.-Qesellschaft, Vol. X (1875), p. 215; Kreyssig, Vorle- 

FRlEaBX,JahrbuchdcrdeutschenShakespeare-Gesellschaft, sungcnilber Sh., 3to|Aufl. (Berlin, 1877 [1862]), Vol. II, p. 

Vol. II (1867), pp. 48-54 ; Ward, History of English Dramatic m ; S. Lee, A Life of William Sh. (Now York and London, 

Literature, Vol. II, 2d ed. (London, 1899 [1875]), pp. 117-19; 1898 )« P- 162, 

Elze, William Sh., trans, by Schmitz (London, 1888 [1876]), 38 Edition citod, Vol. I, pp. xliv, 338. 

-72 



Albert H, Tolman 17 



Some of those who uphold the view of Coleridge are very positive in asserting 
that AIVs Well contains passages written at widely separated dates. White and 
Verplanck state that they formed this opinion before learning that it had been held by 
Coleridge. Hudson and Boyle think that the contrast between the two styles, "the 
Poet's rawest and ripest styles " (Hudson), is pronounced. Furnivall declares that 
" no intelligent person can read the play without being struck by the contrast of early 
and late work in it." 

Boyle has probably presented more fully and carefully than any one else the evi- 
dence for the view that AIVs Well has been revised from an earlier version; 39 while 
Hertzberg, who does not accept the identification with Love's Labour's Won, has given 
the only detailed argument known to the present writer in support of the opinion of 
Delius that AIVs Well was written at one burst (aus einem Guss).* 

This controversy must be briefly outlined here. The following passage is a speci- 
men of those parts of AIVs Well that are considered to be of early date: 

Helena. The great'st grace lending grace, 

Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring 
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring, 
Ere twice in murk and occidental damp 
Moist Hesperus hath quench 'd his sleepy lamp, 
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass 
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass, 
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly, 
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die. 

— II, i, 163-71. 

The Marlowe-like rhetoric and the youthful formalism of these lines are noticeable. 
Other portions of the play that seem to show Shakespeare's early style are: Helena's 
rhymed soliloquy at the close of the first scene — I, i, 231-44; and the indelicate con- 
versation a little earlier between Helena and Parolles — I, i, 121-78. The hiatus at 
1. 179 seems to indicate that parts have been carelessly patched together. 

Shakespeare's earlier versification seems to mark portions of AIVs Well. All 
passages in which rhymes are abundant have been called early by some, irrespective of 
deeper considerations. Herford has carefully discriminated and summarized the evi- 
dence from the rhyme. 41 Some rhymed passages are plainly of an early type. Hertz- 
berg points out the number and quality of the run-on lines (enjambements) in the last 
speech of the first scene, as a proof that it cannot be early ; but the fact that such 
lines as the following are found in one hundred consecutive lines of Love's Labour's 
Lost seems to show that he has made too much of this: V, ii, 326, 327, 343, 351, 
355, 367, 376, 408, 416. Note for example: 

(Biron) This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, 

That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice 

M Englische Studien, Vol. XTV (1890), pp. 408-21. Sh.-Gesellschaft, 2te Aufl. 1897 (lte, 1871), Berlin; Einlei- 

«o Shakespeare's dramatische Werke, nach der TJeber- tTm S ro Ende S^t, Alles gut, Vol. XI, pp. 345-62. 

setzung von .... Schlegel und .... Tieck .... nnter *' The Eversley Sh., Vol. Ill, pp. 111-13. 

Redaction von H. Ulrici, heiaosgegeben durch die doutscho 

173 



18 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

In honorable terms : nay, he can sing 
A mean most meanly; and in ushering 
Mend him who can. — V, ii, 325-9. 

Arguments for the early date of portions of AIVs Well have been found in the 
colorless personality of the clown and his lack of connection with the action ; 42 in the 
fact that Parolles seems a first sketch for Falstaff (Tieck) ; in the indelicate conversa- 
tions; in the agreements of thought between the dialogue of Helena and Parolles 
already referred to (I, i, 121-78) and the first seventeen of the Sonnets (these dwell 
upon the duty of having offspring) ; and in the inconsistencies in the portrayal of 
Helena and Parolles. 43 

A few features suggest a special connection of All's Well with Love's Labour's 
Lost. The First and Second Lords in one play and one of the four suitors in the 
other have the same name, Dumain. Certain similarities exist between the characters 
Parolles and Armado." The tone of the indecorous jesting in the two plays is very 
similar. 

No better example can be given of the mature manner that marks portions of 
All's Well than the farewell words of the Countess to Bertram. This advice reminds 
us of that given by Polonius to Laertes, but surpasses that both in brevity and depth. 

Countess. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father 
In manners, as in shape ! thy blood and virtue 
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness 
Share with thy birthright ! Love all, trust a few, 
Do wrong to none : be able for thine enemy 
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend 
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence, 
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will, 
That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down, 
Fall on thy head ! — I, i, 70-79. 

Other passages showing Shakespeare's riper style are: Helena's soliloquy express- 
ing her love for Bertram — I, i, 90-109 ; and her decision to leave Rousillon — III, 
ii, 102-32. 

Some of the maturer passages in All's Well have parallels in Hamlet and Meas- 
ure/or Measure.'* One connection with Hamlet has just been pointed out. 

The disagreements between the dates assigned to this play by reputable critics 
seem to demand some such explanation as that afforded by the theory that an early 
play or fragment was afterward revised or completed. The dates of Knight, 46 1589-93, 
and Ulrici, 47 1591-92, are in marked contrast with that of Malone, 48 1606. Such a 
difference of opinion as this can hardly be paralleled in the case of another of Shake- 
speare's plays. 

*a Von Frtesen, Jahrbuch, Vol. II, p. 52. «« Ed. Shakspere, 2d ed., Vol. I, p. xlvi. Judging from 

« Boyle, Eng. Studien, Vol. XIV, pp. 416-18. statements in other writers, Knight has somewhere given 

the date as lu90. 
« Brandes, William Sh., one-vol. ed., p. 49. 47 sh.'s Dramatic Art, Vol. II, p. 410. 

« Boyle, p. 416; Brandes, pp. 393 ff. «sThe Boswell-Malone Variorum, 1821, Vol. n, p. 406. 

174 



Albert H. Tolman 19 



A direct reference to the supposed former title of the comedy has been seen by some 
in one line of All's Well, and a possible reference to its two names in another line: 

{Helena) Will you be mine, now you are doubly won? 

—V, hi, 315. 
{King) All is well ended, if this suit be won, 

That you express content. — V, hi, 336-7 {Epilogue). 

Boyle has pointed out some inadvertences and inconsistencies which seem to him 
to support the view that the play experienced revision, but they hardly prove anything 
more than carelessness. 

The different conjectures as to when and why the supposed former title of this 
play was replaced by the present one are of interest. The usual view is the one 
already expressed by Collier, namely, that the comedy once existed in an earlier 
form, which was known as Love's Labour's Won, that when it was revised into 
its present condition it received for that reason its new name. The frequent refer- 
ences to the proverbial title, All's Well that Ends Well, occur in passages 
showing the later style (IV, iv, 35; V, i, 25; V, iii, 333, 336), and are usually 
looked upon as intentional references to the new name that was already selected. 
Malone, in stating his first opinion, conjectured that it was the presence of the pro- 
verb in the text that brought about the change of name. 49 Staunton thinks that the 
play " was originally intituled ' Love's Labour's Won ; or, All's Well that End's 
Well.' " 60 Ulrici 51 and Kreyssig H suggest that the change was made in order to 
avoid inappropriate comparisons between this play and Love's Labour's Lost. 

The consciousness of having a large majority of Shakespearean scholars with them 
has led some of the later advocates of All's Well to speak with unwarranted confi- 
dence. Brandes goes so far as to say: 

Since it is scarcely conceivable that a play of Shakespeare's, once acted, should have been 
entirely lost, the only question is, which of the extant comedies originally bore that title [Love's 
Labour's Won]. But in reality there is no question at all : the play is All's Well that Ends 
Well — not, of course, as we now possess it, in a form and style belonging to a quite mature 
period of the poet's life, but as it stood before the searching revision, of which it shows evident 
traces. 53 

In spite of the popularity of the view that All's Well was referred to by Meres 
as Love's Labour's Won, and in spite of the arguments in its favor, there are grave 
objections. All's Well has, indeed, certain characteristics that seem to favor its claim, 
but it has also fundamental deficiencies. In the first place, no close connection 
between this comedy and its supposed brother-play has been pointed out. The marked 
correspondences and parallelisms between the two pieces which we properly expect to 
find, do not exist. The titles Love's Labour's Lost and Love's Labour's Won seem 
intended to designate companion-plays. All's Well is not a good companion-piece to 
Love's Labour's Lost, and it seems safe to say that it never was. 

«Ed. Shakspeare (London, 1790), Vol. I, Part I, p. 319. « Vorlesungen fiber Sh., 3te Aufl. (Berlin, 1877), Vol. II, 

to Ed. Shakespeare (London, 1881 [1857]), Vol. VI, p. 125. P- m - 

USh.'s Dramatic Art, Vol. II, p. 90. 63 William Sh., one-vol. edition (New York, 1899), p. 47. 

175 



20 Shakespeabe's "Love's Laboub's Won" 

In the second place, there is a marked contrast in tone, in mood, between these 
two plays that are supposed to have been thus closely associated ; and this contrast can 
hardly have been preceded in an earlier version of All's Well by any genuine and 
deep-seated agreement. The central situation of All's Well, the desperate venture of 
the indomitable Helena, would be intolerable if treated in the tone of easy banter that 
distinguishes Love's Labour's Lost. A Helena who was not fundamentally serious 
would be nothing — yes, worse than nothing. 

AIVs Well satisfies some of the conditions, then, that must be met by a play that 
is a candidate for the title Love's Labour's Won; what may fairly be termed the more 
fundamental conditions it does not satisfy. 

Kenny uttered some plain truth on this subject nearly forty years ago, when he 
said: 

Coleridge believed that " All's Well that Ends Well " was originally intended as the coun- 
terpart of " Love's Labour's Lost." But we can discover no indication of any such intention, and 
there is, we think, as little resemblance between the two works as between any other two come- 
dies of their author. 54 

Ingleby tells us: 

Love\s] Labours Wonne .... has not been satisfactorily identified with any of the plays 
in our collection. For one thing, we do not think it likely to be All's well that ends well, as 
Farmer conjectured, which, in our opinion, offers no sufficient resemblance or contrast to serve 
as a pendant to Loves Labours Lost.™ 

With the following well-considered words of von Westenholz we close this division 
of the subject: 

Aber selbst wenn die Handlung von " Ende gut, alles gut " mehr als die eines anderen 
Lustspiels den Titel " Gewonnene Liebesmuh " rechtfertigen sollte, so ist doch noch ein sehr 
wichtiger Umstand dabei unberiicksichtigt geblieben. Jener Titel karn dem Stucke, das ihn 
trug, gewissermassen nicht, oder doch nicht in erster Linie, urn seiner selbst willen zu, vielmehr 
erhielt es denselben offenbar in gewollter Gegenuberstellung zu der bereits vorhandenen " Ver- 
lorenen Liebesmuh." 

Derselbe Parallelismus aber, der zwischen den beiden Titeln bestand, musste naturgemass 
auch zwischen den beiden Stiicken selbst zutage treten und zwar in Bezug auf die Vorgange, 
auf die Personen und vor allem auf den Charakter oder anders ausgedruckt, auf die Stimmung, 
in welche die Handlung gewissermassen getaucht erscheint. 

Namentlich in letzterer Hinsicht aber diirfte es schwer sein, in der Reihe der Shakespeare- 
'schen Komodien zwei zu finden, welche weniger zu einander passen. Hier, bei fast volliger 
Abwesenheit dramatischer Handlung, auf halb romantischem Hintergrund ein anmuthiges 
Tandeln mit Worten, ein spriihendes Feuerwerk des Witzes, dort in schwerer, nicht selten derber 
Sprache ein ernster, mehr schau- als lustspielmassiger Stoff, dessen herbe, peinlich beruhrende 
Seiten die Kunst Shakespeares nur zu mildern, nicht zu unterdriicken vermochte. 56 

M The Life and Genius of Sh. (London, 1864), p. 202. 56 Beilage zur Allegemcinen Zcitung, January 14, 1902, 

ttShakspere Allusion-Books, Part I (London, 1874), P. 78. 
General Intro., p. xxiv. 



176 



Albert H. Tolman 21 



VI. 

In the year 1860, in an anonymous book, Mr. A. E. Brae argued that Much Ado 
should be accepted as the true Love's Labour's Won. bl 

The date of 1599 is usually given to Much Ado, because it seems to be omitted 
from Meres's list of 1598, while it was published in quarto form in 1600. Since the 
title-page of this first edition tells us that " it hath been sundrie] times publikely acted 
by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants," 58 Brae argues very 
plausibly that there is no grave difficulty about the date. Furness points out also that 
the two other comedies which were published in 1600, A Midsummer -Night's Dream 
and The Merchant of Venice, are found in Meres. 59 

Brae would apply the title Love's Labour's Won to the story of Benedict and 
Beatrice. The name Much Ado about Nothing plainly applies to the action of Claudio 
and Hero. The reference to a play "called Benedicte and Betteris" in an item in the 
Lord-Treasurer Stanhope's Accounts for May 20, 1613, suggests " that the present 
title was not always adhered to." 60 Halliwell-Phillipps says, also, "that Charles the 
First, in his copy of the Second Folio, preserved in Windsor Castle, has added the 
names 'Benedick and Beatrice,' as a second title." 61 

Before we examine Brae's interpretation of the titles Love's Labour's Lost and 
Love's Labour's Won, let us see what authority we have for the exact form in which 
they are usually given. We have noted that the two designations appear in Meres as 
Loue labors lost and Loue labours wonne. " Loues labors lost " is the form on the 
title-page of the first quarto of the play. The head-line of each right-hand page 
throughout the book is Loues Labor's lost. In the quarto the apostrophe frequently 
marks the abbreviation 's for is, but seems not to be used before an -s that denotes a 
possessive case, a plural of a noun, or the third singular indicative of a verb. It seems 
clear, therefore, as Furnivall points out, 62 that Labor's is meant as a contraction for 
Labor is. 

The First Folio has Loues Labour lost in the preliminary " Catalogue," or table 
of contents, and Loues Labour's lost as the heading for each page of the text. The 
proper form of the title in modern spelling would therefore seem to be Love's 
Labo(u)r's Lost. The corresponding title would naturally be Love's Labo(u)r's 
Won. 

Hertzberg feels, however, that in the case of Love's Labour's Won, the Labour's 
must be interpreted as an abbreviation for Labour has, since one does not win labour, 
though he may lose labour.^ Probably this difficulty will not seem important to one 

67 Collier, Coleridge, and Shakespeare, by the author of *l The quotation is from Fueness, Much Ado, p. xxii. 
Literary Cookery (London, 1860), chap, vi, pp. 131-48. The He cites " Halliwell, Outlines, etc., p. 262," as his author- 
present writer used the copy in the Boston Public Library. ity. The writer of this article has not found the statement 
The extracts in Fueness'8 Variorum ed. of Much Ado in his copy of the 10th ed. of the Outlines. 
(Phila., 1899), pp. 367-71, are ample. 62 G eiggs, Facsimile of the First Quarto of Love's La- 

58 See Fubnes8's Variorum Much Ado, p. xiii. hour's Lost, n. to p. iii of Forewords. 



'Fueness'8 Much Ado, p. xiv. 



63 STi.'s dramatische Werke, nach der Uebersetznng von 
.... Schlegel uud .... Tieck . . . . 2te Aufl. (Berlin, 
60/6td, pp. xii, 368. 1897), Vol.XLEinleitung zu Ende gut, Alles gut, p. 345, note. 

177 



22 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

whose native tongue is English. It seems easy to interpret labour as put by metonymy 
for the object of the labour, the desired result. Then Love's Labour's Won would 
mean "the desired result of the labor is won, has been obtained." This explanation 
would also apply to the companion title, if desired. Hertzberg could find no example 
in Shakespeare of the use of 's as an abbreviation for has; but a difficult expression 
in The Tempest is thought by many to be an example of this contraction: "For 
he's a spirit of persuasion" (II, i, 235). It does not seem probable, however, that this 
abbreviation can be found in an early play, least of all in the title. Frequent and bold 
abbreviations of common words and combinations, apparently taken from colloquial 
usage, are a distinct mark of Shakespeare's latest style. 

But we are not yet through with the labor — whether of love or aversion — which 
falls to those who would fully consider the question of the significance of these trouble- 
some titles. Brae offers an interpretation of his own: 

It seems to have escaped notice on all hands that the mythological sense of Love's Labour 
would be much more consonant with the age in which Shakespeare wrote, than the sentimental 
sense. That is, that Love's Labours in the dramatic writing of that time, would be much more 
likely to be understood as the gests or exploits of the deity Love, in the same sense as the 
fabled Labours of Hercules. 

That such is really the intention of the title in the case of Love's Labour's Lost, must 
become apparent to any one who will attentively read the play with that previous notion. He 
will then perceive abundant evidence, all through, that it is the mythical exploits of the blind 
god that are alluded to: — in overcoming the apparently insurmountable difficulties opposed to 
him ; in setting at nought the vows of the king and his courtiers ; and in bringing to the feet of 
the princess and her ladies the very men who had forsworn all women. After scattering human 
resolves to the winds, and reducing to subjection the hearts that had presumed to set him at 
defiance, Love at length succumbs to a still more absolute deity than himself. Death steps 
in to frustrate his designs, at the very instant of fruition, and so his labour becomes Labour 
Lost. 

The mythological allusions are unmistakeable. Biron exclaims, when the King enters 
love-stricken, " Proceed, siveet Cupid : thou hast thumped him ivith thy bird-bolt under the left 
pap " [IV, iii, 22-4]. In another place, " Love " is " a Hercules, still climbing trees in the Hes- 
perides " [IV, iii, 340, 341], a direct reference to the mythological labours of Hercules ! And 
when the whole " mess of fools " yield themselves, rescue or no rescue, the King personifies 
Love and invokes him as his patron, — " Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!" [IV, 
iii, 366]. 

Now, according to the interpretation the title of this play has hitherto received at the 
hands of Shakespeare's editors, the mythological sense is ignored. The love's labour which, 
according to them, is lost, is not Love's labour, but that of the King and his fellows, " in their 
endeavours," as Mr. Knight explains, " to ingratiate themselves ivith their mistresses." But 
surely such an explanation excludes the most prominent labour of all, the conquest of the men 
themselves! They, so far from being partakers in the labour, are unwilling victims, — each 
ashamed to acknowledge his defeat to his fellows. This was the triumph, this was the exploit, — 
and, being attributable to Love alone, it is of itself almost sufficient to establish the true mean- 
ing of the title. 

Mr. Brae now seeks to win from his interpretation of this title an argument for 
his contention that Much Ado is the desired Love's Labour's Won: 

178 



Albert H. Tolman 23 



In mythological language, a labour was an achievement of great and supernatural diffi- 
culty, to be undertaken only by the Gods and Heroes ; from the analogy, then, of the assumed 
meaning of that word in Love's Labour's Lost, something of the same character must naturally 
be looked for in whatever play may have borne the companion title of Love's Labour's Won ; 
and it is now to be shown that in no other available play is there so much of that character as in 
Much Ado About Nothing. 

In it, the same difficulty is encotmtered in bringing together sworn enemies to Love, who 
profess to set him at defiance; the same forced subjection of unwilling victims who are confi- 
dently boasting of their freedom. 

So completely is this recognized as a labour, that Don Pedro, the match maker, who must 
meddle with everybody's love affairs, and fancy them his own doing, exclaims: — " I will .... 
undertake one of Hercules' labours ; which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice 
into a mountain of affection the one with the other " [II, i, 379-83]. Here, then, in Love's 
Labour's Won (?), is the same literal reference to the Labours of Hercules as that before noted 
in Love's Labour's Lost ! 

But it is in the numerous allusions to the deity Love, and to his exploits, that the most 
conclusive similitude exists ; — " Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt 
quake for this shortly" [I, i, 273, 274]. Beatrice, in the very opening, says of Benedick: — " He 
set up his bills here in Messina, and challenged Cupid at the flight ; and my uncle's fool, read- 
ing the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt " [I, i, 39-42]. 
Cupid's bird-bolt! see the parallel phrase quoted above. Then, again, where Don Pedro is 
pluming himself upon his clever stratagem to lime Benedick, he exclaims: — " If we can do this, 
Cupid is no longer an archer : his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods " [II, i, 400-402]. 

But, as if in contrast to this foolish assumption, Hero, who plays off the same trick upon 
Beatrice, takes no part of the credit to herself: — she is one of the initiated; she has herself felt 
the power of the bird-bolt and knows well who sent it: — " Of this matter is little Cupid's crafty 
arrow made, that only wounds by hearsay" [III, i, 21-3]. And again: — "Some Cupid kills 
with arrows, some with traps " [III, i, 106]. 

One more of these allusions need only be added, and that principally for the sake of 
explaining an expression which has been much misunderstood. In the opening [the second] 
Scene of the third Act, Don Pedro says of Benedick : — "He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's 
bow-string, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him" [III, ii, 10-12]. Here "hangman" 
, . . . plainly means slaughterer! a very appropriate epithet for Cupid 

Thus the epithet, " little hangman " designating, as it does when properly explained, Love 
as the slaughterer of hearts, directly corroborates the general hypothesis, that " Love's Labour," 
in the titles of these two plays, has mythological reference to the exploits of the god. 64 

It will perhaps help us in estimating the plausibility of Brae's contention if we 
note that the name Cupid occurs ten times in Love's Labour's Lost, nine times in 
Much Ado, eight times in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, and not more than twice in 
any other one of the plays printed as comedies in the First Folio. None of the refer- 
ences in A Midsummer -Night's Dream seem significant. Three of them concern 
Cupid's lost labor in trying to wound the " fair vestal throned by the west " (II, i, 
157-65). In another, " Dian's bud " breaks the spell that had been wrought by 
" Cupid's flower " (IV, i, 78-79). The remaining passages in which the name of the 
love-god appears do not suggest that A Midsummer -Night' s Dream is the much sought 
for Love's Labour's Won (I, i, 169, 235; III, ii, 103, 440). 



«*Fueness's Variorum ed. of Much Ado (Philadelphia, 1899), pp. 369-71. 

179 



24 



Shakespeare's "Love's Laboub's Won" 



Of the ten passages in Love's Labour's Lost which mention the name of Cupid, 
three seem not to be significant (I, ii, 67; II, i, 254; IV, iii, 58). The others follow, 
so far as they have not been already cited: 

(Armado) .... Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club; and therefore too much 
odds for a Spaniard's rapier " [I, ii, 181-3). 

Biron. And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip ; 

A very beadle to a humorous sigh ; 

A critic, nay, a night-watch constable ; 

A domineering pedant o'er the boy ; 

Than whom no mortal so magnificent ! 

This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy ; 

This senior- junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid ; 

Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, 

The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, 

Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, 

Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, 

Sole imperator and great general 

Of trotting 'paritors : — O my little heart! — 

And I to be a corporal of his field, 

And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop 1 

What, I ! I love ! I sue ! I seek a wife ! 

******* 

And I to sigh for her ! to watch for her ! 

To pray for her ! Go to ; it is a plague 

That Cupid will impose for my neglect 

Of his almighty dreadful little might. 

— Ill, 1,175-191,202-5. 
Rosaline. Madam, came nothing else along with that? 
Princess, Nothing but this ! yes, as much love in rhyme 

As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, 

Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all, 

That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name. 

—V, ii, 5-9. 

Boyet. Prepare, madam, prepare ! 

Arm, wenches, arm ! encounters mounted are 

Against your peace : Love doth approach disguised, 

Armed in arguments ; you'll be surprised : 

Muster your wits ; stand in your own defence ; 

Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence. 
Princess. Saint Denis to Saint Cupid ! What are they 

That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say. 

—V, ii, 81-88. 

One of the mentions of Cupid in Much Ado is non-significant (I, i, 186); but one 
of those already cited has especial force if we note the entire context. This context 
contains, also, another mention of the love-god by name: 

Don Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. 

Benedick. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove that 

180 



Albert H. Tolman 25 



ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a 

ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid. 

Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. 
********** 

Don Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this 
shortly. 

Benedick. I look for an earthquake, too, then. [I, i, 249-58, 273-5.] 

It seems to the writer that Brae has made out a good case for his explanation of 
the words Love's Labour's Lost. The interpretation which he gives is natural and 
unforced. Still, the same may be said for the usual understanding of the title. 

Brae makes much of the similarity of Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado to 
Biron and Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost: 

So striking is the resemblance of design and treatment in both pairs, that without any view 
to the present question, they have long been spoken of as first sketch and finished portrait. But 
by the present hypothesis, which assumes that these two plays were designed for companion 
pictures, under titles differing only in denouement, the judgement is at once relieved from the 
necessity of regarding them as repetitions, or of supposing that the inexhaustible Shakespeare 
would recur to his old materials for re-working in another form. 65 

The last sentence is unfortunate in view of the fact that Shakespeare was con- 
stantly repeating his characters and situations in other forms. The amount of dra- 
matic material in The Winter's Tale that had been used in previous plays is really 
astonishing to one who examines the comedy carefully with this in mind. Did 
Shakespeare abandon the device of having a heroine disguise herself as a young man, 
after employing it once? 

But there is also apparent design [says Brae] in the contrasts, as well as in the similitudes 
presented by these two plays. In one the prevailing feature is rhyme, in the other prose; in one 
the phraseology is obscure and euphuistic, in the other remarkably plain and colloquial. 66 

" In short," in the words of Mr. Sludge, the Medium, " a hit proves much, a miss 
proves more." Really, these last points count heavily against Brae's hypothesis. 

Parallel passages are cited " for the purpose of showing that the two plays were 
probably written about the same time," but these are not numerous enough to have 
much force. 

The ingenuity and plausibility of Brae's argument caused Fleay to abandon the 
view of Coleridge, which, as already noted, he had supported in 1874 and 1876. In 
1877, he declared that Brae had shown that Much Ado "is almost certainly the 
same as Love's Labour's Won.'''' In 1886, he was less positive. In 1891, he 
thought Much Ado "probably a rewritten version of Love's Labour's Won" 61 The 
additional arguments by which Fleay attempted in 1886 to strengthen Brae's view 
are ingenious but not valuable. However, the fine sarcasm with which Furness refutes 
one of these is so delicious that it cannot be said to have lived in vain. 68 

65 Furness's Much Ado, p. 368. Shakespeare (London, 1886), pp. 204,205. A Biographical 

66J6td. Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642, 2 Vols. (London, 

w Introduction to Shakespearian Study (London and ' 

Glasgow,1877), pp 23, 25. The Life and Work of William 68 Variorum ed. of Much Ado, pp. xviii, xix. 

181 



26 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

vii. " the taming of the shbew" 
The view that is now to engage our attention was put forward by Craik in 1857. 
Omitting most of what he says concerning a manuscript emendation in the Collier 
folio, his argument runs as follows: 

May not the true Love's Labour's Won be what we now call The Taming of the Shrew * 
That Play is founded upon an older one called The Taming of a Shrew; it is therefore in the 
highest degree improbable that it was originally produced under its present name. The 
designation by which it is now known, in all likelihood, was only given to it after its predecessor 
had been driven from the stage, and had come to be generally forgotten. Have we not that 
which it previously bore indicated in one of the restorations of Mr. Collier's MS. annotator, 
who directs us, in the last line but one of the Second Act, instead of " in this case of wooing " 
to read " in this case of winning " . . . . The Play is, besides, full of other repetitions of the same 
key-note. Thus, in the second Scene of Act I, when Hortensio informs Gremio that he had 
promised Petrucio, if he would become suitor to Katharine, that they " would be contributors, 
And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er," Gremio answers, " And so we will, provided that he 
win her" [I, ii, 215-17]. In the fifth Scene of Act IV, when the resolute Veronese has brought 
the shrew to a complete submission, Hortensio's congratulation is, " Petrucio, go thy ways ; the 
field is won" [IV, v, 23]. So in the concluding scene the lady's father exclaims, " Now, fair befall 
thee, good Petrucio ! The wager thou hast won;" to which the latter replies, "Nay, I will win 
my wager better yet " [V, ii, 111, 112, 116]. And his last words in passing from the stage, 
as if in pointed allusion to our supposed title of the piece, are — 

" 'Twas I won the wager, though you [Lucentio] hit the white; 
And, being a winner, God give you good night !" [V, ii, 186, 187.] 

The title of Love's Labour's Won, it may be added, might also comprehend the underplot 
of Lucentio and Bianca, and even that of Hortensio and the Widow, though in the case of the 
latter it might rather be supposed to be the lady who should be deemed the winning party." *' 

Hertzberg tells us that Emil Palleske and E. W. Sievers preceded himself in 
Germany in identifying Love's Labour's Won with The Taming of the Shrew.' In 
the case of Palleske no reference is given, and it has been impossible to find at 
Harvard University or the Boston Public Library the book or article concerned. The 
argument of Sievers will be given later. Hertzberg points out in favor of the theory 
before us that The Taming of the Shrew is not in Meres's list by its own name, 
although it is among the most youthful productions of Shakespeare; that Petruchio 
has an abundance of labor in winning the desired result ; and that, though the title 
Love's Labour's Won does not apply perfectly and for all the suitors, the companion 
title Lore's Labour's Lost is by no means an entirely happy description of the action 
of that comedy." 

Boas inclines to the view of Hertzberg, both in his argument against All's Well 
and in that favoring The Taming of the Shrew, "while admitting that the question 
has not been quite conclusively settled." ' 2 

69 George L. Craik, The English of Shakespeare 71 Einleitung zu Ende gut, AUes gut. as already cited, 

(London, 1857), pp. 8, 9, note. The passage is omitted from p. 355. 
the American edition. KShakspere and His Predecessors (New York, 1896). 

i°Sh.'s Dramutische Werke, nach der Uebersetznng von p. 345, note. 

Schlegel und Tieck 2te Aufl. (Berlin, 1897, 

[1871]), Vol. XI, Einleituug zu Ende gut, AUes gut, p. 355. 

182 



Albebt H. Tolman 27 



9 



The question of the date of The Taming of the Shrew need not detain us long, 
since Shakespearean scholars are pretty well agreed that the play was in existence 
when Meres's list was written. It is generally accepted also that only the shrew story 
itself in this comedy is by Shakespeare, and that the under-plot is not his. 73 

The supposed allusions in the play and to the play by means of which attempts 
have been made to determine the date of The Taming of the Shrew are entirely 
inconclusive. 74 Remembering the " inveterate skepticism " of Delius concerning most 
of the allusions used to establish the dates of plays, 75 and the exposure which Furness 
has recently made of their untrustworthiness in the case of Twelfth Night™ let us look 
for better evidence. 

The fact that the comedy called Tlie Taming of a Shrew was published in 1594 
does not help very directly in determining the date of our play. The Shrew and A 
Shrew (as it will be convenient to call the two plays) are closely related. The taming 
story is the same in both, and there are also remarkable agreements in language, extend- 
ing even to insignificant phrases. The under-plots of the two comedies are decidedly 
different. The usual view is that Shakespeare took not only his main plot from A 
Shrew, but also the language, where that is common to the two plays. But this view 
has not been proved. 

The testimony of the versification would place Shakespeare's part of The Shrew 
very early in his career as a writer, Konig 77 finds the play to have a smaller 
percentage of run-on lines (enjambements) than any other. Moreover, in those parts 
of the play which are accepted as Shakespeare's, the run-on lines are less numerous 
than elsewhere. Of all the so-called metrical tests, this one of the frequency of run-on 
lines, " the stopt-line test," seems to be the most important. This importance is due 
both to its organic character, its close relation to the changing thought and style of 
the poet, and also to the large number of lines concerned in determining the percentage 
for each play. 

The small amount of rhyme in Shakespeare's part of The Shrew 78 speaks against 
giving to the play so early a date as "the stopt-line test" would indicate; but the 
metrical evidence as a whole is plainly in favor of a date before 1598. The links which 
Furnivall points out between The Shrew and the other dramas, concern plays that are 
in Meres's list, especially The Comedy of Errors.' 9 The accepted opinion that Tlie 
Shrew was in existence when Meres's book was written seems therefore to be well 
founded. 

A struggle for supremacy between a wife and husband was a favorite theme in 
mediaeval story. The Wife of Bath and the Merchant's Wife, in Chaucer, are examples 

'3 Collier and White stated in general terms the view '5 Preface to the Leopold Shakspere, London, 

now generally accepted as to what portions of the play were 76 p ref ace to Variorum ed . of Twelfth Night (Phi i ade i. 

written by Shakespeare. The details have been discussed vhin 1901) dd vii-xi 
by Fleay, Furnivall, and the present writer. See the 

writer's article, " Shakespeare's Part in ' The Taming of " Der Vers in Shaksperes Dramen (Strassburg, 1888), 

the Shrew,' " Publications of the Modern Lang. Association, P- 133- 
Vol. V (1890), pp, 252-77. 78p M & s . Modern Lang. Assoc.,Vol. V, pp. 269, 270. 

'♦See the article just named, pp. 211-13. ?9 Intro, to Leopold Shakspeare, p. xliv. 

183 



28 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

of assertive shrews. The half-morality Tom Tyler and His Wife,* which gives an 
amusing account of an attempt to tame a shrew, was probably printed in 1578. 81 

The Taming of the Shrew is usually said to have appeared in print for the first 
time in the folio of 1623. It was also printed in quarto form in 1631. Some years 
ago Mr. Quaritch, the London bookseller, offered for sale a quarto copy of this play 
which did not contain the leaf bearing the date, but which he believed to have been 
printed before the First Folio. 82 The Taming of a Shrew was printed in 1591, 1596, 
and 1607. Since the taming story is substantially the same in both plays, all of these 
impressions may be reckoned together as showing the popularity of this story. This 
play was the only comedy of Shakespeare to call out a dramatic retort after his death ; 
and the existence of this companion piece, Fletcher's Tlie Woman's Prize, or, The 
Tamer Tamed, of itself makes it certain that our play had been a favorite. In 1633 
Shakespeare's comedy was performed at court on the night of November 26, and 
Fletcher's on November 28. 83 Fletcher's piece seems to have been generally called by 
its second name, The Tamer Tamed, undoubtedly, as Weber observes, in order " to 
approximate the title to that of Shakespeare's play." s3 The Taming of the Shrew was 
revived at the Restoration. The Dutch version of 1651 is " the earliest extant transla- 
tion of any Shakespearean play." 84 In Germany this comedy has been many times 
refashioned. Whatever may have been the form of the play spoken of in 1658 as 
" Die wunderbare Heurath Petruvio, mit der bosen Catharine," 85 an adaptation of 
Shakespeare's play called " Kunst fiber alle Kunste, ein bos Weib gut zu machen," 
appeared in 1672, and is " the earliest impression of a German version of an entire 
Shakespearian piece." 86 Later adaptations are: "Christian Weise's Diebose Katha- 
rina, 1705; Schink's Die besdhmte Wiederbellerin, 1781, and Holbein's Liebe kann 
Alles, 1822; finally the now current version by Deinhardstein." 87 

In Germany at the present day this comedy enjoys a surpassing popularity. From 
the annual statistics given in the Jahrbucher of the German Shakespeare Society we 
learn that, during the four years 1885-88, The Taming of the Shrew was played 297 
times in the usual version, and 153 times in the Holbein adaptation, Liebe kann Alles, 
a total of 450 times. No other play of Shakespeare was so popular. Othello and 
Hamlet come next with 411 and 347 performances in the same period. In 1895, 
Othello was presented 114 times and The Taming of the Shrew 104 times, out of a 
total of 774 Shakespearean performances. In the same year Liebe kann Alles was 
acted "about 30 times." In 1900, out of a total of 713 performances for all the plays 
of Shakespeare, Othello was acted 96 times ; Hamlet and Borneo and Juliet, each 83 

80 Reprinted by F. E. Schelling from the 2d ed., 1661, Bolte, Jahrbuch der deutschen Sh.-Oesellschaft, Vol. 
in the Publications of the Modern Lang. Assoc., Vol. XV, XXVI, pp. 78, 79. 

pp. <25d-89. 85 introduction to KOhler's edition of Kunst Uber alle 

81 Schelling, Intro., pp. 254-7. KUnste, etc. (Berlin, 1861), p. is. 

82 Bankside Shakespeare, Vol. II (New York, 1888), p. 4. 86Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany (London, 1865), p. 

83 The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. by A. DTCE 
(Boston, 1854), Vol. II, p. 178. 87Heefoed, The Evertley Sh., Vol. II (London, 1899), 



8« "De dollo Bruyloft" is the title. See article by J. 

181 



pp. 11, 12. 



Albert H. Tolman 29 



times; The Taming of the Shrew, 78 times. No account was kept of the presen- 
tation of Liebe kann Alles. 

In the United States The Taming of the Shrew has always enjoyed a good degree 
of public favor, but not the abounding measure bestowed upon it in Germany. 

Various comedies of the age of Elizabeth and James besides those already men- 
tioned deal with the general topic of shrewish and unmanageable wives; and a number 
of more modern plays have either been adapted from The Taming of the Shrew or 
suggested by it. 88 

The accepted early date of The Taming of the Shrew, and its extraordinary and 
continuous popularity, force us to ask the question: How could such a play be 
omitted from Meres's list ? The only purpose of the list was to establish the claim 
that Shakespeare was " most excellent in both kinds [tragedy and comedy] for the 
stage." How could Meres omit this play with its mastery of comic technique? — this 
play which goes off with such captivating vigor on the stage, which has such an abund- 
ance of broad and even farcical comedy for the crowd, and also suggestions of deeper 
truth for the thoughtful? "No other play of Shakespeare," says Herford, "has come 
home like the The Taming of the Shrew to the business and bosoms of average men and 
husbands." 89 Must we believe that this comedy was omitted by Meres? 

Herford thinks that Meres's failure to include The Shrew is indecisive as to the 
date "in the case of a play so largely not Shakespeare's." 90 Von Westenholz takes 
the same line of explanation, when he says: 

Die Zahl der Shakespeare'schen Lustspiele aber diirfte im Jahre 1598 das halbe Dutzend 
thatsachlich kaum erreicht, jedenfalls nicht Iiberschritten haben, zumal wenn Meres die " Zah- 
mung der Widerspenstigen," die wir ja allerdings als ein Jugendprodukt anzusehen pflegen, 
wegen der allzu engen Anlehnung an die Vorlage oder aus anderen Grtinden von seiner Liste 
ausschliessen wollte. 91 

It is impossible to argue against unknown " andere Grrttnde " ; and it is hard to see 
why The Shrew should be omitted by Meres. This is especially true as against the 
view of von Westenholz, who claims that Meres really mentions only five comedies in 
a list which calls for and appears to contain the titles of six. 

Are we to believe that the agreements between A Shrew and The Shrew are due 
to the fact that Shakespeare borrows freely from the already existing play, A Shrew ? 
If so, it is just the most successful and the most intensely Shakespearean parts of 
The Shrew which are taken from the other play; and this borrowing marks not only 
the plot but also the language. The especial difficulty concerns the language ; for it 
seems absurd to think of Shakespeare as following another writer in the minute and 
unimportant phrases that are common to the two plays. 92 There is no difficulty really 
like this in all Shakespearean study. King John follows very closely the action and 

88 See Talcott Williams's "Bibliography of 'The ^Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, January 14, 1902, 

Taming of the Shrew,' " Shakespeariana, Vol. V, pp. 445-56, p. 79. 

497-513. 92 See Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assoc, Vol. V, pp. 

89 Eversley Sh., Vol. H, p. 10. 247-9. 

so Ibid., p. i.oEversle 

185 



30 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

general plan of the older play, The Troublesome Reign of King John, but not the 
language. Parts II and III of Henry VI. freely appropriate passages from the two 
older plays on which they are based ; but many Shakespearean scholars believe that in 
doing this the dramatist, on the whole, only took again what he had himself contrib- 
uted to the earlier plays. But the minute verbal agreements between The Shrew and 
A Shrew have been generally explained by supposing that Shakespeare appropriated 
freely the language of another, even unimportant bits of prose. Every student of 
Shakespeare knows how easily he transformed the materials which he took for his own 
use ; and it is hard to think of him as appropriating the ordinary prose phrases of 
another in this wholesale fashion. The true explanation must be that in some way 
another man borrowed the language of Shakespeare. 

More than twenty years ago Professor Bernhard ten Brink expressed the opinion 
that The Shrew is the revision of a youthful work of Shakespeare, and that A Shrew 
was based directly on this youthful piece. This would make the writer of A Shrew, 
and not Shakespeare, the borrower. Ten Brink's exact words are : 

The Taming of a Shrew .... halte ich weder fur ein Jugendwerk Shakespeare's noch fur 
das Original, welches dieser benutzt hat, noch endlich fur eine Bearbeitung der Shakespeare'schen 
Komodie, die uns in der Folio tiberliefert ist. Meiner Ansicht nach beruhen Taming of a Shrew 
und das beinah gleichnamige Stuck der Folio auf einer gemeinsamen Quelle ; diese Quelle aber 
war eine Jugendarbeit Shakespeares, die sich von der spatern Fassung namentlich auch 
dadurch unterschied, dass das aus den Siq)poses entlehnte Motiv ihrer einfachern Intrigue noch 
abging [was still wanting to its simpler intrigue]. Fur eine Begriindung dieser Hypothese ist 
hier kein Raum. Einstweilen moge es ihr zur Empfehlung gereichen, dass sie zwischen den 
alteren Ansichten vermittelt, diese gewissermassen in sich vereinigt und den Bedenken, welche 
gegen jede derselben geltend gemacht worden sind, nicht unterliegt. 93 

If we assume for the moment that the hypothesis of ten Brink is true, it is natural 
to suggest that this youthful work of Shakespeare bore the name of Love's Labour's 
Won, that then an unauthorized adaptation of this early piece became popular under 
the name The Taming of a Shrew, and that later Shakespeare's play was revised to 
meet this competition and received its present title. This new name, The Taming 
of the Shrew, involved, we may suppose, a claim to the rightful ownership of the 
common material. 

Ten Brink's hypothesis is highly speculative, and can probably never be really 
proved. Yet it would explain many difficulties; and among these the following may 
be mentioned: 

1. The agreements between the language of The Shrew and A Shrew. 

2. The remarkable borrowings from Marlowe and imitations of him which abound 
in A Shrew. 91 The borrower takes freely from both the great dramatists. 

3. The early date given to Shakespeare's part of The Shrew by the stopt-line test. 

4. The remarkable excellence of A Shrew, its author being called by Swinburne 
"of all the pre-Shakespeareans incomparably the truest, the richest, the most powerful 
and original humourist." 95 

93"Ueber den Sommornachtstraum," Jahrbuch der 95 Cited by Bullen, The Works of Marlotoe (Boston, 

deutschen Sh.-Gescllschaft, Vol. XIII, p. 94. 1885 )< Vo1 - h P- lxxvl - 

9* Publications of Modern Lang. Assoc, Vol. V, pp. 239-47. 

186 



Albert H. Tolman 31 



5. The view of Pope, Capell, and Frey, the Bankside editor, that Shakespeare 
wrote A Shrew. 

6. The use made of The Supposes, a play translated by Gascoigne from the 
Italian of Ariosto, and played in 1566. As the present writer has shown elsewhere, 96 
the underplot of The Shrew is decidedly superior to that of A Shrew, and appropriates 
much more material from The Supposes. It seems very unlikely that Shakespeare's 
play in its present form was before the writer of A Shrew. Ten Brink and Herford 97 
seem to be in error in thinking that A Shrew takes nothing from The Supposes. 

The excellence of the Cade scenes in II Henry VI. makes it probable that 
Shakespeare wrote admirable comedy of a vigorous type very early in his career. 

Without trying to insist upon all of the points in the hypothesis of ten Brink, 
we may suppose that Love's Labour's Won became at a later day The Taming of the 
Shrew, whether or not a change in the form of the play accompanied this change of 
name. The new title may well express the claim of the comedy to be the authorita- 
tive version of the shrew story. This theory concerning Love's Labour's Won offers, 
therefore, a definite reason for the giving up of that title. The strange similarity in 
the titles of The Taming of A Shrew and The Taming of THE Shrew receives thus a 
natural explanation, and becomes significant. 

Herford objects to the suggestion that The Taming of the Shrew can be connected 
with the title Love's Labour's Won because in this comedy " it is marital authority 
that labours and wins, not love." 98 But surely there is no reason to believe that 
Petruchio carries through his taming without any real affection for his Kate. The 
action begins unfortunately with a mercenary and emphatic choice of Katharine by 
Petruchio before he has seen her; at this point A Shrew is the better play. Still, 
we are undoubtedly intended to see that Kate needs to be tamed for her own perma- 
nent happiness; and it is only fair and natural to believe that below the pretense of 
Petruchio "That all is done in reverend care of her" (IV, i, 217) lies the deeper 
fact that a real affection is winning a wise victory. It makes the play needlessly 
offensive not to admit that it is love's labour that is at last won. 

We have already noted those passages in The Shrew which seem to Craik to refer 
distinctly to its supposed earlier title. The expressions concerned, while not at all 
conclusive, certainly fit well with his interpretation. 

It must be frankly admitted that the correspondences and agreements in dramatic 
details which we fairly expect to find between two plays with such parallel titles do not 
exist between Love's Labour's Lost and our proposed Love's Labour's Won, TJie Shrew. 
The claims of Much Ado about Nothing and A Midsummer-Night's Dream are much 
better supported at this point. However, the tone of the two plays is distinctly similar. 
There is in each about the same mixture of jest and earnest. Also, the fundamental 
thought, the theme, in each play may be said to be a humorous presentation of what is 
normal and what abnormal in the relations between the sexes, considered apart from 

96 Publications of Modern Lang. Assoc. ,Vol. V, pp. 215-27. 98 Intro, to AIVs Well, Eversley Sh., Vol. Ill, p. 114. 

VEversley Sfc., Vol. II, pp. 6, 7. 

187 



32 Shakespeaee's "Love's Labour's Won" 

any question of vice. From this point of view these two plays may be said to be a 
group by themselves among the dramas of Shakespeare. 

If we subdivide the fourteen plays that are printed in the First Folio as comedies, 
perhaps a classification that is as significant as any is that which separates them into 
what may be called tragi-comedies, romantic comedies, and pure comedies. The 
Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure fall together as tragi-comedies, plays 
in which the action, after threatening for a time to end fatally, reaches a happy con- 
clusion. After these come the romantic comedies, those which have a principal action 
that is in the main dignified and earnest, while the humorous element is especially 
prominent in connection with subordinate characters, or even in a separate subordinate 
action. This is Shakespeare's favorite type of comedy, and at least eight of our fourteen 
plays belong most naturally in this class. If we apply the term pure comedies to plays 
in which the central action is filled with humor, the four remaining plays will fall here. 
These are: Love's Labour's Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of 
Windsor, and The Comedy of Errors. It may be best to make a fourth class for The 
Comedy of Errors, and call it a farce. This would be both because the play puts 
impossibilities in the very foreground in order to excite laughter, and because its 
comedy of misunderstandings is almost entirely independent of the characters of those 
concerned, and often becomes the mere boisterous fun of unexpected beating or scold- 
ing. If we thus set this play by itself, three dramas remain in our class of pure 
comedies. One of these, The Merry Wives, is generally believed not to have been in 
existence at the time when Meres wrote; though some think otherwise. The story that 
this play was written at the command of Queen Elizabeth is given both by Dennis and 
Howe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It may well go back to contem- 
porary authority, and has been widely accepted. Rowe says: "She [Elizabeth] was 
so well pleas'd with that admirable character of Falstaff in the two parts of Henry the 
Fourth, that she commanded him [Shakespeare] to continue it for one play more, and 
to shew him in love. This is said to be the occasion of his writing the Merry Wives 
of Windsor." " If we do not question this account, then we have in Love's 
Labour's Lost and The Taming of the Shreio the only pure comedies which Shake- 
speare wrote of his own accord, and probably the only ones that were in existence when 
Meres's list was penned. 

A very recent treatise in English upon the theory of the drama is that by Miss 
Woodbridge. She makes much of the division of comedy into judicial, or satiric 
comedy, on the one hand, and non-judicial, or sympathetic comedy, on the other. 100 
This distinction applies properly only to the comic elements in the plays. Jonson, as 
a comedian, is judicial, satiric, reformatory ; Shakespeare is prevailingly non-judicial, 
sympathetic, genial. What fools we mortals be! This thought may be taken as the 
motto for Shakespeare's work as a humorous dramatist. Among the fourteen "come- 

9'Cited in Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, etc., 10th i<"> The Drama, Its Law, and Its Technique (Boston, 1898), 

ed. (London, 1898), Vol. II, p. 74. pp. 62-6, 162-74. 

188 



Albebt H. Tolman 33 



dies" of the First Folio, the following may be said to show in their humorous portions 
some approach to the judicial, satiric spirit: Lovers Labour's Lost, The Taming of the 
Shrew, The Merry Wives, AIVs Well (the story of Parolles), Twelfth Night (the story 
of Malvolio), and The Tempest (the conspiracy of Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo). 
Of these six plays, the first two were almost certainly in existence when Meres wrote, 
and probably only the first two. Here once more we find Love's Labour's Lost and 
The Shrew associated. 

The above argument had been completed in the form given, before the writer was 
able to get access to the work of E. W. Sievers, in which, in 1866, he advocated the 
identification of The Taming of the Shrew and Love's Labour's Won. His words sup- 
plement and enforce in a most effective way what has already been said: 

Wir kommen zu zwei Komodien des Dichters, die einer wesentlich andern Richtung seines 
Geisteslebens entsprungen sind, " Verlorne Liebesmiih " und " Die gezahmte Widerspenstige." 
In diesen beiden Stiicken nahert sich die Shakspeare'sche Komodie dem, was man gewohnlich 
unter Lustspiel versteht, und in der That sind es hier nun einzelne Verkehrtheiten und 
Schwachen der Menschen, die der Dichter geisselt. Der Mensch, wie er hier vor uns tritt, 
erscheint nicht mehr als das Product der mit Notwendigkeit wirkenden Factoren seiner Natur, 
sondern als ein freies Wesen, der Dichter sucht ihn in der Sphare seiner Freiheit auf, und deren 
erste und allgemeinste Grenzen zu ziehen, ihm den Weg zu ihr zu zeigen, ist das Interesse, das 
ihn erfiillt. Er [der Dichter] erscheint daher in diesen Stiicken in der Eigenschaft des Padago- 
gen, des Lehrers und Mahners der Menschheit, und so voll des genialsten Uebermuthes sie sind, 
der tiefe sittliche Ernst steht doch immer im Hintergrunde, ja er verdrangt sogar in beiden 
Stiicken zuletzt die harmlos heitre Stimmung und hebt auch sie damit wieder iiber das Niveau 
des gewOhnlichen Lustspiels hinaus. Wir haben iibrigens hier nur ihren allgemeinen Charakter 
bezeichnen wollen, nicht den asthetischen Werth, den sie in Anspruch nehmen diirfen. In 
letztrer Beziehung steht " Die gezahmte Widerspenstige " tief unter alien andern Werken des 
Dichters und kann namentlich dem heutigen Menschen nur noch durch die fast verschwen- 
derische Entfaltung des zwar derben, darum aber nicht minder glanzenden Witzes interessiren. 

Was die Zeit ihrer Entstehung angeht, so schliessen sich beide Stucke aller Wahrschein- 
lichkeit nach sehr eng an die beiden Veroneser und die Komodie der Irrungen an ; sowohl 
Sprache und Versbau wie der ganze Charakter der Stucke fiihren darauf hin, dass sie bereits 
vor dem Jahre 1594, also vor dem Sommernachtstraum entstanden sind, der sie namentlich an 
technischer Vollendung der Composition weit iiberragt 

So sehr nun auch die Fabel [von " Ende gut, Alles gut "] die Bezeichnung der gewon- 
nenen Liebesmiih rechtfertigen mochte, so ist dennoch die Farmer'sche Vermuthung vOllig 
unhaltbar. Das Werk des Meres erschien im Jahre 1598 und alle sowohl aussere wie innere 
Merkmale, Sprache und Versbau nicht weniger wie der in " Ende gut, Alles gut " hervortretende 
gedrangte und gedankenvolle Tiefsinn, dazu die kiinstlerische Tendenz des Stiickes, die mit der 
verlornen Liebesmiih nicht das Mindeste gemein hat, Alles fiihrt darauf hin, wie die Vertreter 
dieser Ansicht selbst offen bekennen, dass dieses Stiick in einer spatern Zeit entstanden sein 
muss und folglich unter jener Bezeichnung nicht kann gemeint gewesen sein. Was also liegt 
naher, als auf " Die gezahmte Widerspenstige " zu schliessen, zumal da Meres gerade dieses 
Stiick in seiner Aufzahlung der Shakspeare'schen Dramen unerwahnt lasst? Dass es wie 
schon bemerkt, ziemlich gleichzeitig mit " Verlorne Liebesmiih " entstanden ist, gibt dieser 
Annahme noch eine neue Stiitze. 101 

loi E. W. Sievebs, William Shakspeare, Sein Leben und recently of the Boston Public Library, for a copy of the 
Dichten (Gotha, 1866), Vol. I, pp. 329-31. passages from Sievers. 

The writer is under obligation to Miss H. B. Keller 

L.oFC. 189 



34 Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Won" 

conclusion 

If we recur to the various criteria suggested in our introduction for testing the 
claim of any particular comedy of Shakespeare to be accepted as Love's Labour's Won 
under another name, it is clear that no one of the plays proposed satisfies them all in 
any convincing fashion. No one who has followed the foregoing discussion will 
wonder, therefore, that some scholars consider this problem to be insoluble. As we 
have already seen, Dowden, in 1895, expressed himself in a very hesitating manner, 
saying that " Love's Labour's Won .... may be a lost play of Shakespeare, or pos- 
sibly, as has been conjectured, All's Well that Ends Well in an earlier form may have 
borne this title." 102 Wendell puts the plain truth in a plain way when he says: "The 
question can never be definitely settled." 103 Unless some new evidence shall be dis- 
covered, this statement is just. 

In trying to estimate briefly the comparative claims of the various views that have 
now been presented, it is extremely difficult to measure the force which should be 
given to the agreement between the order of the comedies as named by Meres and 
that in the First Folio. This coincidence was pointed out at the close of the discus- 
sion of A Midsummer-Night's Dream. 10 * If we look upon the coincidence in question 
as having great significance, then we shall be almost compelled to accept one of the 
first three views that have been presented ; and among these the first one, which holds 
that Love's Labour's Won has disappeared, seems to be decidedly the most probable. 

The present writer, however, is constitutionally indisposed to judge Shake- 
spearean questions on the evidence of cryptograms and mystic coincidences. In the 
few words which remain, therefore, this strange agreement will be disregarded. 

Of the four views which hold that the play has come down to us under another 
name, the favorite theory, that which connects Love's Labour's Won with All's Well, 
seems to the present writer to be decidedly improbable. In spite of the considerations 
in favor of A Midsummer-Night s Dream, which von Westenholz has ably presented, 
the fundamental difficulty of supposing that Meres names only five comedies in his 
list, makes that view inadmissible. On the whole, if we are to find Love's Labour's 
Won among the plays that we now possess, the choice appears to lie between Much 
Ado about Nothing and Hie Taming of the Shrew. The considerations in favor of 
Tlie Taming of the Shrew are strong, and the attempt has here been made to present 
them with some fullness. 

102 Introduction to Sh. (London and New York, n. d.), ios William Shakspere (Now York, 1894), p. 246. 

P- 80- 104 See in this article p. 13. 



190 



190? 



